At the age of 26, when most young lawyers are thinking
only of how to maintain a respectable number of billable hours,
Sarah Weddington was embroiled in one of the most politically
divisive and precedent-shaping cases of the 20th century: Roe
v. Wade. And as if leading a landmark case like Roe as her first
high-profile assignment wasn’t enough, Weddington went one
step further: she won.

The story of Roe began in 1970, when Weddington
was approached by a group of University of Texas graduate
students working as abortion counselors. “They wanted
a woman lawyer, and I was the only one they’d ever heard
of,” Weddington said in her address to Penn Law’s Feminist
Working Group last April, “And also, they wanted someone
who would work for free.”